You Can Learn a Lot from a Climate Denying Sociopath Like Steven Goddard (aka Tony Heller)

Climate denying sociopaths have declared war on science, will you step up your game?

I’m going to tell you what others won’t: it’s time you global warmists stop being so mealy mouthed and take the gloves off. It’s 2014, haven’t you realized yet that we live in a crowded information environment? If you want to get people’s attention these days, you can’t just grab people by the balls, you’ve got to yank them right off.

Now, tell me honestly, do you really think keeping calm and carrying on with your dull and complicated data-driven arguments is a great way to drive public opinion? Really? Well, I can tell with 100% certainty that with that approach it’ll be far too late to get people concerned enough in time to do anything about the rise in CO2 levels.

No, you need to take a more radical approach. Ratchet it up. Push all the emotional buttons to whip your base into a frenzy. Human civilization is at stake here. Start acting like it!

But apparently you’re letting your reputation as a reasonable, measured adult get in the way. Or perhaps you’re too worried that your friends and family might perceive you as a “Debbie Downer” or a chicken little. And let’s just admit it: you also realize you’ll be dead and gone before the shit really hits the fan. Whatever the case may be, your attempts to communicate the dangers of global warming are ineffectual and your resolve to tackle this huge problem is not strong. And while your half-hearted attempts at opposing CO2 emissions might be good enough to assuage your guilt, they are no match for zealots like me.

Now, admittedly, I’m a nut job. I have almost zero credibility with anybody who follows the climate change debates closely. What I write isn’t even close to being scientifically accurate. And yet that hasn’t stopped me from driving 20 million page views to my blog over the past few years. Think about that. That translates into about 5 to 10 million individual people that I’ve reached. I claim to pull in 250,000 visitors to my site each week. I also tweet all day every day and have amassed well over 4,000 followers. There’s no question I’m affecting the minds of millions of scientifically illiterate and impressionable people who stumble upon my blog. How many people have your arcane debates about the science of global warming reached?

How do I do it? I appeal to people’s emotions. I’m provocative. I get ideas out there by being controversial and contrarian. I leverage the weaknesses of human nature to my advantage. Maybe you are too good for that. Maybe you think it’s more honorable to take the high road and fight the honest, noble fight rather than compromise your integrity with the kind of practices I employ. For some of you, a very small sliver of you, it might be more effective to take the high road because you can have more influence that way. But for the rest of you, it’s time to get down and dirty and fight fire with fire. It’s time to realize that the promised “Age of Information” has actually ushered in the “Age of Disinformation.” The rules that applied to last century don’t apply to this one. If you aren’t playing by the new rules, people like me will mop the floor with you.

And though I may not be able to sway the opinions of decision makers or scientists, that doesn’t matter. What’s more important is that I can influence a large number of ordinary people. Let me tell you, they are angry. And they vote. And guess what? They are about ready to cut politicians’ heads off. Why? Because they are being incited to. There are thousands of other individuals like me using the same kind of tactics. Some of them are on major media outlets but rest of us toil away in obscurity driven by nothing but the propaganda we have bought into. And if you don’t think that my kind of approach doesn’t work, then go take another look at the recent mid-term elections results. Fossil-fuel loving wingnuts are now running the Senate.

So, I suggest it’s time for you to reassess your strategy for combating global warming. It’s time to behave like there’s no tomorrow. Because there isn’t. Not as long as you continue to be so blasé about the global warming crisis. Not as long as you think you are above talking about anything but hard facts. Look at what I’ve been able to do—a single individual committed to my cause—and I don’t even have the science to back me up. You do. There’s absolutely no excuse for you to pull out the stops and launch an all-out PR assault against politicians and assholes like me to get the general public to understand the dire consequences at stake.

In short, it’s time for you to get off your ass and start aggressively convincing the public that global warming is the most dire threat humanity has ever faced. Do you care enough to get more active, vocal and above all, more angry? If not, you’ll just continue to leave the door wide open for morons like me to cause continued, unconscionable delay. Good luck in your efforts.